


Velveteen Presents Victory Anna vs. Love (Which Is, After All, A Many-Splendored Thing).

by Cadhla



Category: Velveteen - Seanan McGuire
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:56:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/590066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cadhla/pseuds/Cadhla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And now for something completely different!  Join one Science Heroine in her Perilous Quest to find her way to Solid Ground through the power of Science, Steam, and Epona's Own Grace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Velveteen Presents Victory Anna vs. Love (Which Is, After All, A Many-Splendored Thing).

**Author's Note:**

  * For [possibilityleft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilityleft/gifts).



**Another London, in the late 1800s.**

Victoria Cogsworth knew that she would not be making an auspicious marriage when she was ten years old and had the poor fortune and poorer taste to fall in love with her comportment teacher. In her defense, Miss St. John was a woman who had turned any number of heads through her impeccable manners and flawless facial symmetry; Victoria was merely the latest in a string of unintentional conquests. This did nothing to change the fact that when Miss St. John bent to retrieve a fallen bit of chalk from the classroom floor, Victoria felt as if all the air had left the room, driven away by the unbearable beauty of Miss St. John’s incomparable derriere.

It would be several years before Victoria could stir herself to tell her father. He must, after all, have been counting on her marrying well. They were middle class but no better, with no real prospects for advancement; his work was good, but it was not the sort of populist science that would win him wide acclaim, or enrich their coffers. If he was to be cared for in his dotage, and she was to be cared for after his death, it would be her marriage that arranged those things.

Circumstance forced Victoria’s hand shortly after her thirteenth birthday, when her father opened the library door to find her in a tight embrace with the girl who lived across the street. He had stopped there, standing in silent contemplation for several minutes before he said, “Victoria, when you are finished with your friend, please come and see me in my study? I believe it’s time that you and I had a discussion about your future.”

Not long after that, with Ludie safely back in her own home (and doubtless bearing the scrutiny of her own parents, who were rather less…liberated…than the widowed and bohemian Professor Cogsworth), Victoria stood in her father’s laboratory, her eyes fixed on the carpet, and waited for the scolding she was certain would soon come.

“Torey. Look at me.”

“Papa?” She raised her head, swallowing hard. No matter what was to come, no matter how great his displeasure, she would bear herself proudly. She was the unquestioned child of her parents, after all: the daughter of Arminta Weathersby, who would have been a Baroness, had she married better, and Cornelius Cogsworth, who might not have been a nobleman, but was most certainly a genius.

Her father, who had been the center of her world and her life’s sole constant since her mother’s death so many years before, smiled at her. His eyes were kind behind his wire-rimmed spectacles. “Is there something you had been meaning to tell me, darling? Something to do, perhaps, with your fondness for attending church when the Novice Sisters of Epona are in attendance?”

Despite her best efforts at retaining her composure, Victoria’s cheeks flamed red. “It is…possible, Papa, that I have not been entirely forthcoming with you as regards my marriage prospects.”

“Have you dishonored yourself or this house?”

“No, Papa!” Victoria shook her head so hard that her braid whipped around and struck her in the chin. It was a light blow, rough and soft at once, like a horsehair brush. That called to mind the Sisters, and her cheeks reddened again. “I have had, perhaps, desires which might lead to dishonor, but I have not acted upon them, nor have I besmirched the honor of any other.”

“Ah,” said her father, sagely. “Torey, my darling girl, am I to assume from your careful choice of words and avoidance of pronouns that you have discovered in your heart no love for the male half of the species?”

“I…” With the chance to tell the truth finally before her, Victoria’s courage flagged. Her head dropped again, and only the absolute silence of the lab allowed her father to hear her whispered, “Yes.”

“Sweetheart, look at me. Why are you so downcast? I’ve suspected for years.”

“Because marriage, Papa, marriage is a _necessity_ if I’m to raise you from this…this…this squalor, and what will that _mean_?” She raised her head, anguish written plainly on her features. “I can wed, of course I can. There are always failed Sisters and lovely noblewomen with brothers who can carry on the family name. But what of children, Papa? If it’s to be an honorable marriage, arrangements must be made for children, and we do not have either the wealth nor the status to attract a woman who would come to me that well dowried.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Her father walked to his workbench, where they had spent so many good hours together, and sat, beckoning for her to come closer. “Do you truly think I desire to be lifted from my ‘squalor’? I shared this home with your mother. We bought it with _her_ dowry, and supplemented the construction with the money I was paid for my inventions. She married for love. She lost so much to have me, and gained so much, because by coming together, we were able to build the greatest of miraculous machines: you. I am happy to live and die in this house, and if I die the father of an unmarried scientist who has graduated from Oxford, I will count myself the richest man alive.”

“Oh, Papa!” Victoria cried, and ran to fling her arms around his shoulders.

He stroked her back with one hand, closing his eyes. “But I do hope you will find love someday, my darling girl. Love changes everything in the world. Love is greater than science, and I want you to experience that for yourself.”

“Someday, Papa,” she said. “I promise.”

*

**Entering the Void, some years later.**

One moment the world was, as the Queen and Epona herself had always intended. And then, in the turning of a single spring inside the heart of a mechanism designed to break the laws of Time (and why did anyone think, even for an instant, that breaking the laws of Time would be a _good_ idea?), the world _wasn’t_. It was not the sort of transition that mind and soul were meant to survive, and as Victoria Cogsworth felt herself yanked into the vaguely blackcurrant-scented void, she waited for the blackness to claim her.

Instead, the blackness spat her out on a lifeless sphere whose surface was patterned with fossil traces of creatures long gone and epochs long ended. The air was thin but breathable, thanks to some chemical process she did not have the time nor the interest to decode. She wandered lost, the orphan daughter of an entire world, until she found an open tar pit and commenced to building a machine that, while crude, was intended to send her home.

It did not send her home. Instead, it sent her to another empty world…but this one still bore the smoking craters of an advanced civilization, and the scattered graves of creatures that might have once been men. This time, she scavenged her materials from the ruined technology of a failed empire, and the machine that she constructed was sophisticated and elegant. It should have worked. It should have _worked_.

It should not have dropped her into the middle of a generations-long war between two parallel subspecies of Man, both adapted perfectly to their environment, both complete and utter twits. She had been forced to battle several subterranean overseers for the weapons that they carried, and further forced to bully the more innocent surface dwellers into collecting materials quickly. She would normally have done the work herself, but she had the unpleasant suspicion that the subterranean humanoids would be returning with reinforcements. Her machine was completed just as they began to boil up from beneath the ground, and she laughed with bitter relief as the mechanism pulled her away.

This went on and on and on, world after world, until she began to wonder if there was any purpose to harboring hope. Perhaps Epona was testing her, she reasoned; perhaps she would never find a world anything close to her own.

The very next machine dropped her into the middle of a large green field in what looked to be a city. She staggered to her feet, trying to get her bearings, and froze as she saw three humans flying overhead, their capes flapping behind them like the flags of private nations. She was still gaping, a tatterdemalion exile with no concept of the danger she was in, when a blow struck the back of her head, and she knew nothing for a time.

Although she did not yet know it, Victoria Cogsworth was done running...for a time.

*

**Another San Diego, not that long ago.**

Victoria woke up to find herself sprawled in a quite undignified fashion on a mattress which seemed to have been constructed of plywood and springs, rather than good, honest goosefeathers. She rolled into a standing position, realizing as she did that her clothing was gone, replaced by a thin fabric shirt and--most horrifying of all--a pair of matching trousers. _Trousers!_ As if she were a common criminal! Worse yet, she was spotlessly clean, which implied that someone had taken advantage of her insensate condition and _touched_ her in order to remove the built-up grime of a hundred worlds.

The room was small, with white-painted walls and a sophisticated electric lantern attached to the ceiling. There was a door. She squared her shoulders and walked briskly over to it, grabbing the knob and attempting to make it turn. Nothing happened. “Oy!” She banged her fist against the wood, relaxing as that, at least, both felt and sounded as it should. “You have no right to incarcerate me in this fashion! I am a citizen of Her Majesty’s Empire, and I will not be treated like a criminal!” She banged on the door again.

No one answered.

Victoria took a step backward, shoulders slumping, as an emotion that felt very much like defeat washed over her in a wave. There was no point. She was locked in here, with no equipment, no tools, and nothing but a mattress that had been inexplicably stuffed with springs.

Inexplicably...stuffed with...

Really, when Victoria Cogsworth and her flying spring-powered mattress burst through the wall of The Super Patriots holding facility an hour later, they had no one to blame for her escape but themselves.

*

Flying spring-powered mattresses proved to be surprisingly difficult to steer, and as Victoria was unsure precisely where she was going--except for the nebulous “away,” and that wasn’t a destination she could exactly aim for--she brought her construction in for a landing atop a nearby roof. It was a bumpy landing. The springs sighed as the tension went out of them, and she realized dully that she would be unable to rewind them without access to another electrical outlet. Those couldn’t possibly be common. Not in a world that was so strapped for resources that they had to steal the clothing of their prisoners.

The sound of footsteps behind her snapped her out of her reverie. She whirled, all too aware of her near-naked, utterly defenseless state. “Don’t come any closer!” she snapped, trying to look less frightened than she felt. “I assure you, my fury, if unleashed, will be enough to permanently change the relations between the atoms making up your flesh!”

The woman who had suddenly appeared on the roof was tall, thin, and blonde, although her forelock had been dyed an inexplicable array of rainbow shades, perhaps marking her as a member of some religious order. Her hair was cut short enough to look like a man’s. She was wearing a skintight black garment that extended from her feet to her neck, hugging her every curve like she had been dipped in oil. The only other color was the sash tied around her waist, a long stretch of rainbow fabric. Her hands were raised defensively.

“I didn’t come here to invoke any fury, I swear,” she said. “I saw you escape from The Super Patriots. I couldn’t stop them from taking you, but I thought that maybe I could help you now that you were loose.”

Victoria eyed her suspiciously. “Why would you help me?”

“The Super Patriots and I, we don’t exactly see eye to eye on certain things. Like how you should treat visiting heroes.” The woman cautiously lowered her hands. “Look. If we stay out here talking about this, they’re going to catch us both. Can you trust me for a little while? Just long enough to figure out what you want to do next?”

Victoria glanced nervously to the empty sky, and then back to the black-clad woman. It would take more equipment than she had to build another dimension-hopping device. She was tired. She was hungry. And she was cold. “What’s your name?”

“They call me Polychrome.”

“I am Victoria Cogsworth, late of Londinium, the Crown Jewel of her Majesty’s Empire, and I have a question that you must answer before I will go anywhere with you.”

“What’s that?”

“For the love of Epona, can you provide me with some proper clothing?” Victoria shivered. “I feel entirely exposed.”

Much to her surprise, Polychrome laughed.

*

Polychrome’s home--which she referred to as a “lair,” something Victoria felt sounded faintly unhygienic--was in the top floor of an abandoned library building, and accessed only via a skylight. That would have been a problem, had the woman not been possessed of the remarkable power of flight. She soared on a self-generated rainbow, leaving glitter in the air behind her, and it was incredible enough that Victoria quite forgot to be self-conscious about the fact that she was being carried. At least, that was, until Polychrome touched down lightly on the scratched-up old wood floor, and Victoria realized precisely how undignified her position was.

“Put me down, if you would be so kind?” she managed.

“Sure.” Polychrome bent to set the shorter woman’s feet gently on the ground. As she straightened, she spread her arms, and said, “Welcome to my humble abode.”

“It’s very nice, really.” Victoria wrapped her arms around herself, taking a look around. The, ah, lair was cluttered with old furniture and machines that she didn’t recognize, but itched to take apart. Polychrome was already walking away, heading toward a full-length mirror in a standing brass frame. “Excuse me? What’s going on?”

“I promised you clothes, remember?” Polychrome stopped in front of the mirror, clasped her hands in front of her chest, and said, “Mirror mirror, on the wall, can you please put through my call?”

The surface of the mirror clouded with billowing blue smoke. When it cleared, another blonde woman was reflected in place of Polychrome. This one was curvier, with long ringlets instead of short, shaggy locks. She was wearing a small diadem, marking her as a princess of the realm. As for her clothes...

“Does no one dress decently in this land?” squawked Victoria, before clapping her hands over her mouth, mortified.

The woman in the reflection blinked at her. She was wearing a tight shirt of some unidentifiable material, the words DISNEY MADE ME DO IT printed brazenly across her bosom. Tight blue trousers encased her lower half, calling indecent attention to her legs. “What’ve you got there, Pol?” she asked, her voice rich with the honeyed tones of the American colonies.

“I’m not sure yet,” said Polychrome. “She fell out of a rift in the sky. The Super Patriots grabbed her pretty much immediately, but she’s a smart cookie and broke herself out of their jail. I found her before they did, and brought her home with me.”

“Uh-huh.” The new blonde woman’s reflection continued to study Victoria. “What’s your name, sugar?”

“Victoria Cogsworth,” said Victoria, warily.

“I’m the Princess, Victoria Cogsworth. Welcome.” Her gaze flicked to Polychrome. “What’re you calling me for? I don’t do rifts in the sky.”

“No, but you do clothes, and Victoria here seems to have a rather, ah, Victorian sensibility, if you’ll pardon the pun.” Polychrome shrugged. “She asked if I could get her something decent to wear.”

“Those ruffians took my clothing!” said Victoria, her hurt and confusion coming out plainly in her tone. She folded her arms self-consciously across her chest, and added, “If there is anything which could be arranged, I would be infinitely grateful.”

“Mmm-hmm. Something in a skirt and corset, I’m guessing?” The Princess held up a finger. “I think I’ve got just the solution. Give me a second.” Her reflection got up and walked out of the mirror’s frame.

“That is quite disconcerting,” muttered Victoria.

“You should see what happens when we do conference calls with Frostbite,” said Polychrome. “She’s a snow and ice manipulator. Sort of a supervillain, when she can be bothered to pick a side. Her mother’s the Snow Queen, so she’s very into magical mirrors.”

“How nice for her,” said Victoria politely.

Polychrome paused. “You really have no clue what I’m talking about, do you?”

“Not in the slightest, but I am more than willing to listen if listening will eventually resolve my current nudity.”

Polychrome was opening her mouth to answer when the Princess’s voice declared, “Found it!” from inside the mirror. Polychrome and Victoria turned to see the blonde woman’s reflection, now holding a large carpet bag.

“This got left in the Crystal Glitter Unicorn Cloud Castle by a guest a couple years ago,” she said. “It’s pretty old-fashioned and I have an army of woodland creatures with degrees in fashion design, so what good’s it going to do me? I think your new friend will have more use for it.” She held it out, and to Victoria’s amazement, pushed it through the mirror into the lair.

“Thanks, Princess,” said Polychrome, reaching up to take the bag as it emerged from the glass. “I’ll call you later about drinks?”

“You better, girl, and keep me updated about your houseguest.” The Princess winked in a way that seemed positively obscene to Victoria, although she couldn’t have said precisely why. Smoke billowed into the mirror, and when it cleared, the reflection showed Polychrome, holding the carpet bag.

“What an interesting woman,” said Victoria faintly.

“She’s a good friend, and she _hates_ The Super Patriots,” said Polychrome. She walked over to where Victoria was standing, holding out the carpet bag. “This is for you.”

“I can’t honesty see what good a bag will do me if I’ve nothing to put into it,” said Victoria. She took the bag anyway. There was no point in being rude.

Polychrome smiled. “I think you’re underestimating my friends. The bathroom’s through there.” She indicated a door. “Go and see what’s inside.”

Lacking any polite way to refuse, Victoria went.

*

It is a truth which must be universally acknowledged that a carpet bag, presumably empty, will either contain a forgotten train ticket, the faint smell of mothballs, or an inexhaustible supernaturally-created wardrobe perfectly fitted and styled to the bag’s owner, even if said owner acquired the bag only moments before. Victoria put the carpet bag down on the edge of the small bathroom’s dingy sink, opened it, and stared for a moment before she reached in with trembling hands and withdrew a brown velvet corset patterned in a subtle gear pattern.

While she had not been stripped to indecency in any of the other dimensions she had unwittingly visited since the loss of her home, her corsetry had been growing increasingly frayed as the strain of travel and constant wear broke its fabrics down. She did not like to think of how poor her grooming had become, as necessity and circumstance forced her to lower her standards again and again.

With shaking hands and teary eyes, she removed the thin garments she had been dressed in by her captors and pulled on good, honest clothing once more: undershirt, underskirt, overskirt, blouse, corset...with each layer, she felt a little less lost, and a little more like she could endure whatever this world might hold. There were even boots in her size, cunning things with low heels and sides that were fastened by a long row of gear-shaped buttons.

Victoria Cogsworth straightened and looked at her reflection in the mirror over the sink (which was her reflection, thankfully, and not that of a blonde woman who did not believe in dressing gowns). She looked, for the first time in years, like her father’s daughter.

And she smiled.

*

Polychrome let out a long, low whistle as Victoria emerged from the bathroom, the carpet bag in one hand. “Wow. I expected something old-fashioned, but full-on steampunk? Okay.”

“I’m sorry?” said Victoria politely.

“I just meant--” Polychrome stopped. The accent, the manners, the references to Her Majesty’s Empire, and the subtle bowing of the other woman’s rib cage, as if she had been subjected to years of compression to mold her into a pleasing form... “Um. Please don’t take this as prying, even though it kind of is, but you _did_ fall out of a rift in the sky. Where are you from?”

“I fear my world is lost, destroyed by a great machine intended to bend the fabric of time and space,” said Victoria carefully. “But when it was there, and real, I lived with my father in Londinium, in the safety and splendor of Her Majesty’s British Empire.”

“We have an England in this world, but it hasn’t been the sort of place you call ‘Her Majesty’s British Empire’ in a long time,” said Polychrome. “What year was it when you left?”

“Eighteen hundred and eighty four,” said Victoria primly.

“Ah.” Polychrome fought the urge to put a hand over her face. Instead, as carefully as she could, she said, “Look, Victoria...I think we need to talk.”

*

After everything else that she had been through, learning that she was now standing in a world more than a hundred years subsequent to her own was merely the icing on a cake of bad circumstance and unpleasant information. “Ah,” she said finally. “I see.”

“I’m sorry,” said Polychrome lamely. She’d met time-stranded heroes before, but they had always seemed more...intentional...than Victoria, who just looked a little lost. “It’s not so bad here, really, if you can keep away from the Super Patriots. You’re some kind of super-scientist, right?”

“I do not _think_ of myself as a ‘super-scientist.’ My education is woefully incomplete,” said Victoria. “Who are these ‘Super Patriots’? Why did they capture me? I did nothing to incite their wrath.”

“Sure you did,” said Polychrome. “You showed evidence of super-tech without being under their control. See, The Super Patriots, they think of themselves as the only game in town, at least where any sort of super anything is concerned. They would have started working on you by now if you hadn’t escaped. They’re really, really good at making people see things their way.”

“You seem to have experience with them.”

“I used to be one of them.” Polychrome shrugged and looked away. “I got better.”

Victoria, who recognized old pain and older shame when she saw it, let the topic go. “Well,” she said. “I shall be in this world until I can construct a dimensional transition device with which to continue my journey. A lady never imposes, but I have been forced by circumstance to surrender some of my more dearly-held manners to the road. Might I stay with you for a time? I will pull my own weight, and will endeavor not to stain anything.”

Polychrome smiled.

*

**Another San Diego, six months later.**

The sound of Polychrome plummeting through the open skylight had become familiar--even reassuring--in the time that Victoria had been living with her. It was normally followed by a thump as the falling heroine’s body impacted with the bean bags piled beneath the opening. This time was no different. What was different, however, was the sound of groaning. Victoria put down her screwdriver and removed her gloves, calling, “Pol?” as she moved toward the door.

(Polychrome had a non-heroic name: Yelena. But it was given to her by parents who had been all too happy to sell her into indentured servitude with The Super Patriots, and it did not properly describe the beaten but proud woman with whom Victoria shared the lair. Polychrome she was, and Polychrome she would always be, at least in the eyes of one Victoria Cogsworth.)

Polychrome answered not with words, but with another groan. Victoria stopped in the doorway, staring aghast at the battered body of her friend. “Pol!” She ran to the other woman. “What happened?”

“The Super Patriots knew I was coming. It was a trap. I barely made it back here without being followed.” Polychrome managed to shake her head before grimacing. “I’m sorry to do this to you when I know your work is at a delicate stage, but I think I may need a new lair. This one is too close to being compromised.”

“Something closer to the ground might be useful,” allowed Victoria, sliding an arm around Polychrome’s shoulders and helping her to her feet. “Come on, you. Let’s get those scrapes looked to before you have some sort of an infection to deal with.”

“I can ask the Princess if she’d let you come and stay with her until your dimensional transit device is complete.”

Victoria paused. “Are you...are you eager to be rid of me?”

“What?” Polychrome turned to look at her, eyes wide. “I...no, Victoria, I just don’t want you...you could get hurt, that’s all. This is a dangerous town, and a dangerous time. The Super Patriots are really starting to crack down on independent superhuman activity. I’ve been officially classified as a villain. Do you understand what that means?”

“Yes. It means that they’re imbeciles.” Victoria helped Polychrome into one of the lair’s rickety wooden chairs. That was something that would need to change once they were in a new, more permanent location. They needed proper furniture, and a proper kitchen, one where she could bake without fear of discovery. “I don’t care if they’re against you.”

“If they follow me back to the lair, they’ll find you. You’re an unlicensed gadgeteer. I don’t know what that meant in your world, but here, it means The Super Patriots can take you into custody, and once that happens...” Polychrome shuddered. “You don’t understand what they can do to you. What they _will_ do to you. You’ll be on their side before you know it, and you’ll never get home.”

“Ah. About that.” Victoria looked away, speaking her next words to the wall. “I have not yet completed a dimensional transit device which allows for targeted movement between worlds. I have, however, managed to construct a...a navigational device, of a sort. It allowed me to trace my voyage backward, from world to world, all the way to the world where I began.”

“Oh, Victoria, that’s wonderful!”

“Is it?” Victoria shook her head as she turned back to Polychrome. “It’s gone, Pol. My world...it isn’t there anymore. The explosion that sent me flying through the walls of reality didn’t just destroy the laboratory. It destroyed everything. So you see, it doesn’t really matter if those blasted heroes follow you back to the lair. I’m never going home regardless.”

“Victoria.” Polychrome simply stared at her for a moment. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too. But I’m not sorry at the same time. My father was dead before the time machine exploded. I would have had nothing to go back to. The urge to return was...reflex, really, nothing more nor less than that.” Victoria swallowed hard before walking quickly away. She returned with the first aid kit, and knelt at Polychrome’s feet. “Give me your hands.”

Polychrome obliged. “You know you can stay with me for as long as you need to.”

“I was rather counting on that.” Victoria began wiping down Polychrome’s hands with sterile cloths. “I thought that perhaps...this place could be a new home for me. For as long as you’d have me.”

There was a long pause before Polychrome said, “I would love that. But there’s something you should know before you decide that you want to stay with me permanently. I hadn’t brought it up before because, well. You come from a world that’s pretty similar to our Victorian era, and I thought it might upset you. You know that I’m not...married, right? And that I left The Super Patriots in part because I had been betrayed by a teammate that I was in love with?”

“Yes.”

“Her name was Velveteen.”

Victoria’s hands stilled. A long moment passed before she raised her head and met Polychrome’s eyes. “So you’re telling me that you prefer the company of women?”

Polychrome bit her lip and nodded.

Victoria swallowed the urge to laugh out loud. It seemed disrespectful somehow, like it would be refusing to acknowledge the seriousness of Polychrome’s confession. Instead, she searched the other woman’s face, looking for some sign of what steps would be appropriate. What she saw there...she recognized that look. She had seen it before, so many times, on herself, and on Ludie from across the street, who was doubtless dead and dust now, just like all the others. Poor Ludie.

 _I wish we had been braver,_ thought Victoria. _I will learn to be braver now._

Leaning up as far as she could without getting off her knees, she raised her head and kissed Polychrome full on the mouth.

It was a clumsy kiss--first kisses so often are--and Polychrome was stiff at first, like she couldn’t quite believe that this was happening. But she relaxed in the face of Victoria’s undeniable enthusiasm, the tension going out of her shoulders as her hands lifted to cup the redheaded girl’s waist. When they finally broke apart, they were both flushed and panting slightly.

Then Polychrome’s eyes widened with something that looked very close to panic. “Victoria, I didn’t mean to imply that you would have to—”

“If you complete that sentence, I will slap you, for I am many things, but I am not a woman of ill-considered virtue,” said Victoria. “You simply gave me leave to do what I had wanted to do for months on end. Pol. _My_ Pol.” Oh, the words sounded so right when uttered in that order. “You have no idea how long I’ve spent in wanting you.”

Polychrome had faced many things in her life. Betrayal, confusion, combat, and even, rarely, compassion. But she had never once been faced with someone saying that they wanted her for _her_ , not for whatever she might be able to do for them. Unable to decide what was supposed to happen next, she froze.

Victoria had no such trouble. She stood, taking Polychrome’s hands in both of hers, and said, “I am here, with you, for as long as you want me. We do not have a church, nor my father’s blessing; you cannot promise me your faith before the white flowers on the altar, and I cannot promise you my honor. But I am sure Epona would understand the needs of our situation, and would forgive us any trespasses.”

It took a moment for Polychrome to puzzle through that statement. It could be hard when Victoria became particularly dense. Finally, she ventured, “You want to date?”

Victoria smiled. “I was actually inviting you to join me in your bedchamber, but this ‘dating’ could be pleasant as well, if that’s your preference.”

For once, Polychrome had absolutely nothing to say.

*

The new lair was beautiful. Underground in an unused portion of the steam tunnels that ran under San Diego, it was prime supervillain real estate, suitable for booby-trapping and for easy escape. Victoria walked the edges of the open floor plan, twirling her parasol and already plotting improvements. The kitchen would go here--she could install all the fixtures over the course of a weekend, and the Princess could loan them some squirrels to help with painting and cupboard placement--and the bathroom would go here, where there was room for a full-sized hot tub to soothe away those evening aches and pains. This wouldn’t be squatting in a dirty hidey-hole, waiting for The Super Patriots to find them. This would be _living_.

Polychrome finished her conversation with Frostbite and Dr. Darwin, walking across the empty floor to join her girlfriend. “It’s all ours,” she said. “Are you sure you want to co-sign?”

“I am,” said Victoria.

“You’ll need to choose a code name, then. This is Supervillain Realty. They don’t take street names.” Polychrome looked at her gravely. “Last chance to back out.”

Victoria snorted. “I think not. What do you think of ‘Our Fearsome Lady of Ray Guns’?”

“It’s...a little long. How about ‘Victory Anna’? Like ‘Victoriana,’ but with a different stress.”

Victoria blinked. And then Victory Anna, new-christened and finally home, smiled.

“Yes,” she said. “I think I like that very much.”

Taking hands, the pair turned and walked together to meet their future.


End file.
